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Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Therefore, the only logical way to avoid huge corruption is to have separate society's and nations massively autonomous/independent from each other, with careful thought given to completely de-centralising power globally.

United States Of America
Rotten.
United States Of Europe
Rotten.
What's next?
United States Of Asia?
Let me guess, rotten?

Time to get out.
We still have the strong pound and a pretty good banking/financing system.
Bye bye EU and all the cash the UK has thrown in.

This is precisely the sort of drivel that seems to sustain the lower end as they blunder their way through to make a decision on matters they clearly ill-comprehend.

The day the UK votes to quit the EU in toto would see the £ fall by at least 30%. Period. Certainly it will be way less than the Euro and may just fall to parity with the US $ but most likely less.

Dumb as a troop of retarded bonobo apes with their brains trepanned through their nostrils.

The UK would of course cease to exist in its current state because Scotland would demand, and get, an immediate referendum to quit which would most undoubtedly be the decision this time around given their near universal demand to remain within the EU.

N.Ireland couldn't remain and unification would be an almost certainty.

The British electorate are not the brightest in the world and scarcely better than Alabama fuckwits. They seem to think that free trade would remain an option with the EU as a matter of right and that a departure would end migration but the truth of the matter is that most states would make unfettered trade utterly conditional upon freedom of movement.

The week before the Scots went to the polls a survey indicated that a majority would vote to quit the Union. That very day the £ fell by nearly 8%.

Quitting the EU would be equivalent to the banking crash in economic terms and the fallout quite dreadful. And for what? So that the Tory right - wing can exploit the working man without any interference from Brussels?

Britain by itself in the world would be utter shite not least because the country is host to a significant minority of welfare trash and the work ethic is pitiful.

Strong £ and a good banking system??? You're a fucking idiot. £800 billion QE to bail them out, the total collapse of the Halifax Bank and a state takeover of RBS? Total moron.

Tory right-wing can exploit the working man without any interference from Brussels?

and anyone not adding to production would be quietly put in the bin.

Even if Cametoosoon got his way with a 4 yr ban on welfare for foreigners,
wouldn't the same apply to Brits going the other way ?
Also restrictions on how much you'd be allowed to take out if you left the country to find work elsewhere.

Anyway, free trade agreements would need to have free movement of people in Europe.

I hope the euro leaders tell cametoosoon to get lost. mean fecker he is.
Can't have one without the other.

Time to get out.
We still have the strong pound and a pretty good banking/financing system.
Bye bye EU and all the cash the UK has thrown in.

This is precisely the sort of drivel that seems to sustain the lower end as they blunder their way through to make a decision on matters they clearly ill-comprehend.

The day the UK votes to quit the EU in toto would see the £ fall by at least 30%. Period. Certainly it will be way less than the Euro and may just fall to parity with the US $ but most likely less.

Dumb as a troop of retarded bonobo apes with their brains trepanned through their nostrils.

The UK would of course cease to exist in its current state because Scotland would demand, and get, an immediate referendum to quit which would most undoubtedly be the decision this time around given their near universal demand to remain within the EU.

N.Ireland couldn't remain and unification would be an almost certainty.

The British electorate are not the brightest in the world and scarcely better than Alabama fuckwits. They seem to think that free trade would remain an option with the EU as a matter of right and that a departure would end migration but the truth of the matter is that most states would make unfettered trade utterly conditional upon freedom of movement.

The week before the Scots went to the polls a survey indicated that a majority would vote to quit the Union. That very day the £ fell by nearly 8%.

Quitting the EU would be equivalent to the banking crash in economic terms and the fallout quite dreadful. And for what? So that the Tory right - wing can exploit the working man without any interference from Brussels?

Britain by itself in the world would be utter shite not least because the country is host to a significant minority of welfare trash and the work ethic is pitiful.

Strong £ and a good banking system??? You're a fucking idiot. £800 billion QE to bail them out, the total collapse of the Halifax Bank and a state takeover of RBS? Total moron.

Do you really believe what you have just written??
Do you think Scotland will want to leave the UK with Brent at $30 a barrel.
Do you want to live next door to the thousands of Turks that will be here as soon as they get in the EU?

The day the UK votes to quit the EU in toto would see the £ fall by at least 30%. Period. Certainly it will be way less than the Euro and may just fall to parity with the US $ but most likely less.

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

The UK would of course cease to exist in its current state because Scotland would demand, and get, an immediate referendum to quit which would most undoubtedly be the decision this time around given their near universal demand to remain within the EU.

Originally Posted by Seekingasylum

Quitting the EU would be equivalent to the banking crash in economic terms and the fallout quite dreadful.

Barclays has put forward a different view, which will be seen as positive by those advocating a vote to leave. It reckons the departure of one of the union's most powerful economies would hit its finances and also boost populist anti-EU movements in other countries. This would open a "Pandora's box" that could lead to the "collapse of the European project".

In this event, the UK could be seen as a safe haven from those risks, attracting investors, boosting the pound and reducing the risk that Scotland would "leave the relative safety of the UK for an increasingly uncertain EU".

On the plus side, The Economist says Britain would also be able to claim back its territorial fishing waters, scrap caps on limits to the number of hours people can work per week, free itself from the EU's renewable energy drive and create a freer economic market. This would turn London into a "freewheeling hub for emerging-market finance – a sort of Singapore on steroids", it says.

Britain could follow the lead of Norway, which has access to the single market but is not bound by EU laws on areas such as agriculture, justice and home affairs.

Just think for a second about all that has happened. Unemployment rates across the Eurozone have remained stubbornly fixed at above 10 per cent. A major refugee crisis has erupted inside the borders of the EU. The Paris attacks will, for many voters, have underscored an association between refugees and threats to security. Then there are the record high levels of net migration into Britain, accompanied by record high levels of public concern over immigration. And there is lots of research which shows how these identity concerns should be fuelling support for Leave. Not to mention David Cameron’s renegotiation that has been presented widely as a damp lettuce.

The pound will fall 30% will it?
...and why's that? because corporation tax is lower and bureaucracy is reduced, making it quicker, simpler, and more profitable for companies to base themselves in London, next to the global financial centre, and the world's most educated and culturally significant city?

Imagine the pound did fall 30%, then surely British exports would be cheaper, whilst still being the same quality, and thus better value, no?
Surely exports would increase, because they are cheaper, and the current account deficit would be improved, and the country would enter a period of growth, given that everyone could see that there was at least 30% of value to be recouped.
Say the economy managed about 5% a year, then you could say that the correction you describe would lead to 6 years of growth, and a health clear out of overvalued assets, and bad debts, so a temporary increase in insolvencies. Consumers would buy local more, because of the weaker currency, so add that to the growth out of the correction.

Every scenario can be responded to by policy - if anything, this shock would lead to the UK become more capitalist than the EU, and benefiting in the longer term.

Unlike the Euro, the pound is a real currency, that is not under threat of implosion. The Euro is such a demonstrably bad idea that it cannot ever work properly and compete with a proper currency of a proper country.

Scotland would not get an immediate referendum, even if it demanded one, as has been pointed out, the flight of investment from Scotland to England would be biblical... oil at rock bottom, under no control of the Scots, and the infrastructure not owned by them either. They would be hostage to it - and binding themselves to the disaster of the Euro, would result in another Greece... assuming of course that the EU would let them join... the legal uncertainty over Scottish membership and oil rights would screw them in terms of investment. The EU states don't want a precedent that could result in bits of France and Spain trying to secede.

N. Ireland unification a certainty?! That one just really does show how little, as an American, you understand about Ireland. That would be about as likely as Israel and Iran unifying.

You'll have read about the veracity of surveys and polls in the UK last year... political polls come on rolls nowadays. Even the EU polls tell two different stories depending on whether its a phone poll or an online poll, and on which polling company you follow - no useful pattern at all, other than the margin of error is so wide as to render them useless. Anyway, people can say what they want in a poll, but come election day when they think about their mortgage, it's a different story - people tend to vote for economic competence above all things in the UK.
The pound fell on the day you mention because of protracted uncertainty, not because of the direction of a specific vote.

"equivalent of the banking crash" - grand terms, but what you'll need is evidence.

If you think the Tories are "right wing" you really are deluded... even the Democrats can't get a whiff of an NHS, but the Tories certainly ain't scrapping it, and gay marriage - how right wing is that?! The Tories are subsidising homebuy schemes, they are more left-wing in every sense than even previous Labour leaderships - which is why Labour has elected crypto-communists as leaders to try and seem more left-wing than the left-wing Tories!

£800BN is nothing on the scale of things, genius. Banks come and go, but even Gordon Brown couldn't destroy the British economy - though god knows he gave it his best shot!

PM and European council president fail to reach deal over renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with EU before crucial summit

David Cameron’s preferred option of an early referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU edged further away after he failed to broker a deal with the president of the European council, Donald Tusk.

The two men had hoped to finalise a renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Brussels over dinner at Downing Street so that it could be put to other EU leaders on Monday ahead of a crucial summit in less than three weeks.

An early deal would allow Cameron to call a referendum on the UK’s EU membership before the summer.

But a Downing Street source said that none of the four key areas under negotiation have been agreed. Instead, further negotiations will be left to diplomats or “sherpas” in Brussels on Monday, in the hope that a deal will be put to EU member states on Tuesday.

The four key areas which they hoped to agree upon were the protection of the single market for non-euro countries; a deal on competitiveness by setting a target for the reduction of the “burden” of red tape; an exemption for Britain from “ever-closer union”; and restrictions on EU migrants’ access to in-work benefits such as tax credits.

Given the greatest number of those EU nationals claiming tax credits, proportionate to their migrant population, are in fact Irish citizens it is quite understandable why there may be resistance to a deal between Cameron and Tusk.

Frankly, tax credits should have been abandoned as a welfare stream when Brown lost his election. It is a complex and cumbersome system that subsidises employers in maintaining an artificially low wage culture.

If Britain cast aside the culture of benefit dependence and our lower end dross were compelled to work then this aspect of EU conflict simply wouldn't arise. As it is we are dependent upon migrants to do the work traditionally undertaken by our lumpen lower end who now of course loll about in feckless indolence suckling from the teat of welfarism.

Our entire care system for the elderly and much of the NHS is founded upon migrant labour and would collapse if it were not available.

Quitting the EU is daft on just so many levels but I suppose one must never underestimate the stupidity of the British, as so vividly demonstrated by many posters here.

The prime minister faced two hours of questions from MPs on the draft agreement unveiled by the EU which paves the way for the UK's in/out referendum.
Responding to Mr Johnson, he jabbed his finger on the despatch box to emphasise his point, telling his Conservative colleague: "I am not saying this is perfect, I am not saying the European Union will be perfect after this deal

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has, meanwhile, told MEPs Mr Cameron's deal was "hardly worth the wait" and "really rather pathetic", adding that it had "no treaty change, no powers returned, and no control of our borders".

Some people will vote out just because they hate/mistrust Cameron; others because of the migrant/illegal immigrant issue, and desperate scramble for jobs, houses, and school places... The fear of leaving isn't very strong, because nobody can really see much benefit from staying in. It seems that life would be a lot simpler being out. No need to worry about all the catastrophes afflicting countries across the water.
The EU seems to have failed to bribe enough of the public to keep them hanging in for the socialist economic disaster they're desperately trying pull together. They've also made it far too easy for their enemies. I mean the idiocy of letting all those people through, and the now frequent terrorist attacks, and corruption issues and yooman rites stories... ultimately not many people feel they have got much in the way of economic vested interests there. The few that have are pensioners renting out their gaffs to immigrants, or a special affluent urban lefty elite.
There's nothing in it for us.

So whats in it for cameron?
why would he and all the other power hungry politicians want to be in the EU when it just adds a tier of government above them,

Same as all the other gravy train EU politicians...

Blair's financial assets are structured in a complicated manner, and as such estimates of their extent vary widely.These include figures of up to £100 million; Blair has stated he is worth less than a "fifth of that".A 2015 assertion, by Francis Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan, concluded that Blair had acquired $90 million and a property portfolio worth $37.5 million in the eight years since he had left office.

The moron category, ill educated and 40 plus in most cases is simply not big enough or smart enough to turn the vote into a Brexit.
Anyone under 30 educated to degree level has zero experience of life outside the EU and they are not only accustomed to life in a society of multiple cultures, they are at ease with it because they are growing up in a global culture.
Big business is awash with experienced leaders who are smart, but still resistant to change. Their job is increasingly difficult and the last thing they want is the complication of change.
Finance, industry and economics dictate that the status quo will remain, because they are all interconnected and looking in the same direction for future success.

Not saying it's right, or that I agree with it, but the chances are we will remain in the EU because of those vested interests and resistance to change.

A Scottish-based campaign to keep the UK in the EU has named Prof Mona Siddiqui as the chairwoman of its advisory group.
Prof Siddiqui is professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at the University of Edinburgh.
She has pledged to ensure Scotland Stronger in Europe makes a "positive, factual, people-based" case for the EU.
The UK-wide campaigns to leave the EU have not yet set up Scottish operations.
Scotland Stronger in Europe, which is the Scottish arm of Britain Stronger in Europe, will formally launch later this week. It will be headquartered in Glasgow, and has said its advisory group will be gender balanced and include people from both sides of the independence referendum debate.
It will not contain any serving politicians, recognising the intentions of several parties to run their own campaigns.
Prof Siddiqui said: "The campaign to show that Scotland is better off in Europe will be positive, factual and people-based - making the case that our quality of life is better and horizons broader by keeping our place in the European Union.
"We will be working extremely hard to contribute to a UK-wide vote to stay in Europe, whenever the referendum is called."
Prof Siddiqui is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, holds four honorary doctorates, and an honorary fellowship of the Royal Society of Scottish Architects for her contribution to public life.
In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for her contribution to interfaith services. In 2015, she was named in the Debretts top 500 list of the most influential people in the UK.

Perhaps you mean freedom of movement of EEA nationals within the EU...

It's not really relevant what the policy actually is, it's what the perception is amongst the voters.
What people see is a column of zombies a million strong marching through safe countries inside and outside the EU to their borders; they see terrorist attacks in Paris; they see the Jungle in Sangatte; they see no-go ghettos in their own country already; they feel wages suppressed, housing costs pushed up, and access to basic services like schools and hospitals under incessant pressure.
They see a media determined to push a particular narrative whose overt goal is to bring as many more people into the country as possible.

...but that's only one section of society. There's also those who hate the Tory-Toffs/Fatcha/Murdoch etc... and who are Corbynist zealots who will simultaneously hold contradicting views and vote accordingly (i.e.: irrationally).

...but that too is only one section of society. There's also the dainty middle-classes who are terrified by the prospect of their world being tainted by incoming miscreants, and losing opportunities they feel entitled to.

Originally Posted by chassamui

The moron category, ill educated and 40 plus in most cases is simply not big enough or smart enough to turn the vote into a Brexit.
Anyone under 30 educated to degree level has zero experience of life outside the EU and they are not only accustomed to life in a society of multiple cultures, they are at ease with it because they are growing up in a global culture.
Big business is awash with experienced leaders who are smart, but still resistant to change. Their job is increasingly difficult and the last thing they want is the complication of change.
Finance, industry and economics dictate that the status quo will remain, because they are all interconnected and looking in the same direction for future success.

Not saying it's right, or that I agree with it, but the chances are we will remain in the EU because of those vested interests and resistance to change.

Experience outside the EU?
You're forgetting the cultural pull America has over the EU.
Yes, the EU generates more funded opportunities, but since the cost of education in the UK has been allowed to rise, so has the interest in going across to the USAhttp://go.international.ac.uk/sites/...ell%202014.pdf
(p32+)

It's the growth rate that's interesting, not the size. US universities generally score higher than EU ones in most subjects, and because of the language are more accessible. I think more and more young people are more excited by the prospect of going to study and work abroad in north America (and Australia) than by the EU with all it's problems - extremely high youth unemployment being one of them. If you want to make yourself more employable as a nipper, going to Japan, Korea, and China is more exciting than the EU. Still, I think the US is a bigger pull both culturally and economically, and there is a shift away from pro-EU-ness towards indifference to the EU in that demographic. This does tally with your "ease with global culture" point too.

Whilst big business leaders are resistant to change, they are also resistant to bureaucracy and economic and political instability, which is what has characterised the EU increasingly over recent years.
There's a cost-benefit analysis here, and a "not putting all your eggs in one basket" analysis, and no experienced leader is going to be so resistant to change that they will continue to back something that is losing them money in preference to surfing the tide of economies that are growing.

We do more trade outside the EU:

The growth rate in the Euro area has been and promises to be pants for the foreseeable:Forecast Table
This is not part of some amorphous global crisis, but to do with the EU being a fundamentally flawed concept executed incompetently. Experienced leaders know this, and will adjust their trade direction accordingly, either by choice, or by events.
I agree that economics has the biggest say in this, but the status quo is not working for the hoi polloi, and there's now this new aspect of terrorism that has transformed what was a smouldering economic threat from the EU to a safety-on-the-streets threat. Some people still remember the riots 15 years ago, and 5 years ago...

You may notice the percentage of news articles that attack the leaver campaigns and the number of fearmongering articles abour leaving is disproportionately large compared to any similar traffic the other way.